


what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

by Friedcheesemogu



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anxiety, Coming-of-age but kind of in reverse, Coming-of-now, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/F, Implied Suicide Attempt, Long-Term Relationships, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Today years old, depression!!!, things are hard when they're hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2020-03-09 08:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18913558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Friedcheesemogu/pseuds/Friedcheesemogu
Summary: Bertholdt Hoover is chasing his own shadow in the dark.Or:What comes next when you can't stop holding onto the past.(Set five years after the events of"Say You Will (Or That You Wish You Could)")





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh....happy 5 years SYW, here's the kind-of sequel no one asked for! Or the second sequel? I dunno. It's a thing.
> 
> As the backstory of Reiner and Bert has been revealed in the manga over the past few years, it's made me (even more) interested in the dynamics of their relationship, their relationship to/with Annie, and how Bert reacts on the inside while the rest of the world happens. We spend so little time with him, and only get glimpses of how much he kept inside. 
> 
> In the past 5 years my life has changed in many ways, some extremely positive, some extremely not positive, and this is almost as self-indulgent as SYW but in a slightly different way. As much as I felt like I needed to tell the story of "becoming an adult" before, I've felt for a while that I needed (okay, _wanted_ ) to consider...what comes after that. I hope this doesn't come across as terrifically OOC, but the characters and themes of SNK have always helped me to explain and understand myself. So forgive this as a therapy exercise if nothing else. The timeline may seem a bit off, but I've tried to keep it as logical and coherent as possible.
> 
> This is woefully unbeta'd at the moment, and probably should not be posted but I'm attempting this thing that AoT/SNK inspired me to do and trying to choose to do something different and maybe not worry about what happens. I'll try to keep a reliable update schedule, if anyone out there is interested in that kind of thing. 
> 
> So yeah, this takes place 5 years after SYW, and about a year and a half after ["The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12923541)
> 
> The title is from Charles Bukowski's "How Is Your Heart?"

_Today_

Sometimes he doesn’t want to pull himself up.

Living in constant fear and reverence of the past, the sensation of it looking over your shoulder every time you try to imagine a future that doesn’t feel how this feels, this feeling that is always there, the fire that won’t die in the middle of the darkness that never lifts...

He knows it’s unsustainable.

Bertholdt Hoover wakes up and he is 35 years old.

_One year ago_

Annie tries to give them back the key. It’s in an envelope with a letter that says...something. Bert can’t read it, feels sick just looking at it.

“Babe,” Reiner puts a hand on his shoulder, “We knew this was a possibility. Always. This is probably one of the best ways it could turn out.”

“I don’t care,” he says, shrugging Reiner’s hand off and looking for his wallet. 

“We will literally see her every day like we always have.”

“No, really, I don’t care, it’s not a big deal,” Bert brushes his bangs off his forehead; where did he leave his goddamn wallet, he needs to go...somewhere not here, somewhere not near this letter, but he can’t go without his wallet.

“Bertholdt,” Reiner’s voice drops to a rare register, not the throatiness of so many nights, not the darkness of rage, but in between. A warning and a want. “It doesn’t change us.”

“Yes it does!” He turns petulantly, and thinks if Reiner is doing that fucking voice thing, then he’s going to do that thing that makes him look taller, or at least feel taller, like he’s the bigger man, he’s the one who’s right. “What about the rent? What about all the crap she keeps down here? What about my sacrifice?”

Reiner’s eyes get wide for a moment.

“Your…what?”

“My sacrifice! Everything I do for her! I make her dinner, sometimes I do her laundry!” He can’t find his goddamn motherfucking wallet and every second that goes by twists in his intestines in a way that should be ordinary by now. He just wants to be alone to be angry, to be resentful, to sulk about what it means to watch someone else move ahead when you can’t even seem to stand up. “I make her coffee every morning! Even if she doesn’t need it, I’ve always…for her, I’ve always…”

He finally stops, folding his arms across his chest and squeezing his biceps as he takes a deep breath.

“I mean, we’ve…always...”

Always what? Gotten her into trouble? Hovered over her life? Made her be their defender when they couldn’t fight on their own? Dragged her down, brought her here, missed it when she finally fell in love and didn’t understand it completely when she wanted to spend more nights sleeping with an ace person in a poly relationship than in her own bed above her…what? Friends? Brothers? Family? All of them? None of them? Sometimes one and sometimes another? Bert swallows. “We had a promise.”

Reiner is being so...patient. So understanding, like he’s never had an irrational feeling in his life. Like he’s so much older when the space between them is really just four months. Like he knows how to live through this when Bert has seen him fall apart over a TV show, over a book, over something he barely remembers. 

“The promise is still there.” Reiner is a warmth close to his back but not touching; if he touches him, Bert is going to shove him so hard. “Don’t you trust her?”

“Of course!” He lies, stepping away hard, putting space between them again. “But what if-”

“It’s Annie’s life,” Reiner says. “And she’s happy. That’s what the promise was about, wasn’t it? Making it through? Being happy? ”

Making it through...what? Haven’t they? Isn’t this…

What comes next?

“But what about me?” He realizes how sad, how utterly pathetic it sounds once it’s out. It wasn’t the right thing to say. But underneath the passivity he’s always been selfish and cruel and needy. He needs them. He needs Reiner and he needs Annie and how can he let her go, how can he let anyone else live with her and act like they know her, like they can take care of her, like they’ve made it through-

Being happy? Making it through?

“Babe,” Reiner says softly, hand on his shoulder again, closer than Bert wants but not as close as he needs. “Sometimes, it’s not about you.”

He chokes on a sob, turning and bending to push his face into Reiner’s shoulder. Reiner wraps his arms around his back and says nothing else. He’s said enough.

Sometimes Bert thinks he hasn’t made it through anything. Sometimes he wishes he was the one who doesn’t always remember.

_-Today-_

There are days.

There’s always days, until there aren’t.

Today might be one where existing feels like the heaviest, longest sigh in the world, still going on well after it should have ended, well after you should have needed to breathe.

At 35, he obnoxiously wakes up with the light. 

His left arm and leg are dangling over the edge of the bed, fingers brushing the floor. He levers himself back up to see Reiner still deeply asleep, Siggy curled up around his head. Groping for his phone he smiles a little - he’s never told Reiner she does this sometimes, and it’s probably better if he doesn’t. Much of Reiner’s animosity towards Siggy is for show now, but he’s not going to rock the boat. He takes a picture and texts it to Annie. Is she up yet? Did she get enough sleep? Does she miss her own bed, and the sounds of them walking around under her? He tries not to think about that too hard. 

His head drops as he sighs. He takes three long breaths, feeling the catch in his throat from the ill-advised cigarettes he and Ymir shared over the weekend, then pushes up out of bed. There’s coffee to be made and showers to be taken, there’s laundry in the dryer from last night and a food dish to be filled… 

This is how it goes now, the days that are there. It’s a routine that plays out at different times depending on the week and their schedules. It’s good. It’s safe. It’s known. It’s a place he never expected to be, that he never knew he wanted to reach.

Probably.

And yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bertholdt starts back to where the past begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh...to my extreme chagrin, I forgot something kind of major in my intro notes: this story exists for/because of [Mattatoio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattatoio). I can't remember half of what I need to on a given day, but I remember a conversation we had two years ago, after she'd been helping me talk through some of the things in my head, and I asked her that if I were to write something, maybe in the SYW-world, what would she like? She said "Reiberts, because they are sad," or something to that extent, and that was the genesis of this even though it took a while to become a real thing. 
> 
> So thank you, dear swat puderder.
> 
> And thanks everyone for reading! I hope the way the chapters are broken up isn't too confusing, but uh...this is what happened.

_Three years ago_

Bert is feeding Siggy. He’s been awake approximately 4 minutes, but Reiner had grabbed him tenderly by the hip, shaken him awake, and whispered “Babe, if you don’t feed your monstrosity, I will fucking kill you.”

He snorts, scraping all of the fishy aspic from the bottom of the cat food can into Siggy’s dish. It’s not his fault he sleeps through her morning shrieking. If Reiner hadn’t banished her from the bedroom the night before, this wouldn’t have happened. 

The buzzing from his “WILD IN BED” pajama pants startles him a little; he doesn’t remember putting his phone in his pocket. It must have just been a reflex before he came downstairs.

 **> >From: Annie**  
20 years tomorrow

 **> >From: Me**  
??

 **> >From: Annie**  
Are you serious

 **> >From: Me**  
Annie I just got up

 **> >From: Annie**  
I don't care it's important you should remember

He's not sure what could be so important before coffee, but as he’s typing this he looks at the date at the top of his phone and his eyes go wide, and he understands. He remembers.

 **> >From: Me**  
Oh

Why does he have to remember? Why does _he_ always have to remember?

 **> >From: Me**  
shit

It's what he owes, apparently: to _him,_ to himself, to them, to remember, to carry this black flag through their entire lives because someone has to do it, right? Someone has to keep the darkness from the fire and make sure dark things stay dark and some torn things are never mended.

Or is it the reverse? Is he fanning the flames that burned up his nerves and his chances a long time ago, having given up hoping for the night to accept him, a place to hide.

 **> >From: Annie**  
Yeah

 **> >From: Annie**  
Are we going back?

Should they go back?

Bert sighs and shambles over to the calendar on the kitchen wall. Annie has two days off. Reiner’s the next person into the store after Mikasa, and Bert works the mid-day shift. If they left right after that, they could probably make it before dark, but they’d have to stay overnight and come back in the early afternoon. He wonders if Mr. Leonhardt still has that terrible fold-out couch that makes it feel like you’ve been sleeping on 3.5 slightly bent steel rods. He wonders if they went and then turned right around and didn’t sleep if that would be better or worse or nothing.

Honestly, what's the point? There's nothing they'll do or say that will change anything for anyone, it'll just be digging into an old wound to see how deep the scar tissue goes. He doesn't want to go at all. (But it’s not about him, right?)

 **> >From: Me**  
Ill talk to Reiner when he gets up

 **> >From: Annie**  
You think he remembers today?

Bert rubs his forehead tiredly. Who the hell knows. He doesn’t even want to bring it up to Reiner, because once they start down that path, it’s gonna be a long day. A long few days.

 **> >From: Me**  
He will

Fuck everything already, he’s going back to bed until Reiner gets up.

_Today_

Reiner’s latest journal is sitting open on the kitchen table and he frowns as he sees it. He knows Reiner came to bed long after him, but how late was he up writing? He reaches for it, the decades-long desire to read it creeping up the back of his neck and nesting darkly at the base of his skull. Bert is good at keeping secrets, Reiner would never know. He’s been so good and trustworthy all this time, except…

...he closes the book over the pen left inside it, marking the page to prove (hoping it proves) he didn’t touch or move it except to keep it private. It’s getting near the end, and soon it’ll join the dozens of others on the shelf next to the turntable. There’s a bad joke that Reiner’s made at least five times about how he keeps journals, and Bert keeps records, hahaha, get it, _records,_ and sometimes Bert is curious how you love someone for years and years when they do and say the stupidest and most annoying things in the world. 

He wonders if he should make extra coffee for Annie, just in case. 

_In case what,_ he asks himself, _in case she comes home? This isn’t home anymore._

But it was, and someone has to remember.

He fight this same instinct every morning, like it’s a necessary ritual that ensures the world will keep turning and that he’ll always have something to weigh down the day. 

Even though he knows better now. Or, well...he should know better now. 

He always makes the extra coffee anyway.

_Three (and a Half) Years Ago_

“So, um.”

Jean is looking out the window at Reiner and Marco trying to maneuver an unnecessarily large dresser out of the moving truck.

“Yeah?”

“Um,” Jean says again, reaching for his soda and not so much drinking it as chewing the straw the way Bert chews the cuffs of his shirts - an oral compensation for the nerves that can be kept in check but not fully contained.

Bert rolls his eyes. He and Jean are not super close, but certainly close enough. They’ve shared enough embarrassing drunk stories and experiences that Jean should at least be willing to look at him and not act like this is their first awkward date.

“Yes Jean.”

“Do you, uh…” He’s talking around the straw. A security straw, Bert thinks, and he would laugh if he didn’t know it would make Jean clam up completely. “Do you and Reiner ever get sick of each other?”

Bert actually does bark out a surprised laugh, and Jean turns to glare at him, jaw tensing as he pulverizes the straw between his teeth. Bert quickly schools himself and raises up his hands in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

“Really, cuz it _seemed_ like it.”

“No,” Bert walks over next to him and joins him watching events unfold outside. Reiner is moving his hands in a circular motion, while Marco is pointing in a different direction. They’re both drenched in sweat and inches from snapping. Bert is very glad to have been appointed to the Box-Carrying Crew. “It’s just funny to hear you say that, like you’re afraid.”

“Of course I’m fucking afraid,” Jean scowls and sets his cup down on the window sill hard. “I’ve never done anything like this. It’s kind of a big fucking deal. It’s kind of like, I dunno, completely life-changing.”

“Jean, you’re moving in together, not getting married.”

Jean’s head jerks up quickly and Bert can see the highlights of a blush on his cheekbones. Well...that’s interesting. He’s going to love telling Reiner about this later. Jean’s eyes quickly narrow, though, and he doesn’t even have to say it out loud for Bert to know exactly what he’s thinking: _speaking of getting married, why aren’t you two married yet?_

So scratch that, Bert is not going to love telling Reiner about this later because he won’t be telling him about this part of the conversation at all.

Reiner refers to Bert as his husband more and more often now. Just casually. In conversation. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with strangers. Bert finds he’s gradually getting more comfortable calling Reiner the same thing, because it’s basically true. It’s true in all ways except the legal one. And sometimes the reasons behind that don't seem to make sense or, they seem too big, and addressing them has ended in a lot of nights of him smoking in the dark and Reiner writing in his journal until the sun comes up until they fall into bed at each other completely exhausted and worthless. (Sometimes when they wake up, it’s okay. Sometimes it isn’t.)

But just thinking about it makes him tired and cranky, and he can’t afford to be either of those when there’s still Jean’s shit to move. 

“Look, this is not about our common-law relationship,” he deflects. “It’s about your potential one.”

Bert remembers watching Marco fall head over heels for Jean across the intake counter. (It just so happened that at the same Annie was falling in love between the bookcases and he missed it, but Annie’s not moving in with her...boyfriend? Boyfriends? Boyfriends and maybe-girlfriend-but-not? Whatever.) He recalls making dinner and watching TV with them, Jean falling asleep on Marco’s shoulder and Marco looking like he’d won every fucking lottery. It was cute. It was sweet. It still is. He just knows a few more... _details_ , so it’s not quite as pure and rose-covered-cottage-white-picket-fence-romantic as it once seemed. (But what is, really?)

Jean, while not always verbally forthcoming, has always worn his heart, his snark, his anxiety on his sleeve. It’s obvious that he’s thrilled to be taking this step with Marco. It’s obvious he’s absolutely terrified.

“What if I fuck it up?” Jean’s voice is quiet, head down like he’s addressing the floor. “I don’t...I won’t have anywhere to go.”

“What makes you think you’ll fuck it up?”

“Uh, because I’m me? Because like...what if we start to get on each other’s nerves and then it’s not fun anymore, it’s...it’s bad and we’re unhappy.”

Outside, Reiner and Marco are now in each other’s faces right, arguing about god knows what. Bert swallows down a weary sigh as he looks back at Jean.

“Jean, you already practically spend every minute of every day together. Are you tired of him?”

“No,” Jean’s tone is a sulky child who knows he’s being difficult. “But living with someone is different, right?”

“It is,” Bert concedes, “And yeah, sometimes Reiner and I do get sick of each other, or at least...need to spend a little time apart. But we have…” He pauses, trying to figure out how to word this, because he’s skirting around the edge of something that’s not just his to share and Jean doesn’t need tragic backstory right now. “We’ve just...been together for such a long time. Lots of stuff happened, and... We knew each other before got together, so like...sometimes there’s things from way back that are still hard for us.” Hard is the delicate way to put it; the truth is that it’s so much more brittle and scary. “You and Marco won’t have to deal with that.”

Jean nods a little.

“You’ll have to deal with your own bullshit that you make together,” Bert says, pushing everything into being sardonic, and manages to keep a straight face as Jean glares at him.

“You know everyone thinks you’re such a quiet, polite, shy dude, but in reality, you’re a fucking asshole.”

“I never said I was a role model.”

“You kind of are, though,” Jean sighs. “What you and Reiner have... it’s special. You make it looks so effortless.”

Bert turns to him and blinks.

“We do?” He considers for a moment. “If we do, it’s because...it took work.” What does he say next? He swallows, trying to buy himself time to come up with something that sounds reasonable and not like the pounding of his heart during a panic attack. “When things got hard and we could have given up on each other, we didn’t.” He can feel Jean’s curiosity; Jean is smart enough to know that there’s a whole novel behind what Bert says, but he manages not to pry. Another time, maybe, Bert will give him the cliffnotes version. With lots of alcohol. (This isn’t about him.) “But you should know by now that Marco would never give up on you. Even if it gets hard -and it will get hard- you’ll push through. You’ll make it work. Because... you love each other and you know that this is what you want, even when you’re afraid.”

Even when it’s so heavy and the flames are so hot and you have to remember, because what if you don’t remember? Even when it’s so dark and you don’t want to turn on the light, because what if you see...anything more than what is or was?

Jean is quiet for several minutes, looking pensive, maybe slightly constipated. 

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Okay, yeah.” He glances up toward Bert. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Bert says, ready to get back to menial labor and less deep conversing. He returns to pick up the box he’d been carrying. “Where did you want this, by the way?”

“Wait,” Jean says, still at the window. “Come back.”

“What?” Bert tries not to be exasperated. He can only give so many pseudo-pep talks a day and this one in particular has wrung him out for anything else.

“They’re still messing around with the dresser, but…” Jean looks at him meaningfully. “They took their shirts off.”

The box falls to the floor, tearing down the side and spilling books. Neither of them notices.

Reiner and Marco have finally agreed on whatever it was, and lifted up the dresser again. Marco’s abs are entirely too present. Bert watches Reiner’s biceps flex, watches him grin and shake the sweat out of his hair.

“Oh shit, son,” Jean hisses.

Reiner looks up at the window and winks at him. Bert bites his lip and hopes this whole moving crap doesn’t take too much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dessa - ["Poor Atlas"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWEHFqo4mg)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It never occurred to him that he could be something more to someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is a bit shorter? But uh...that's just what happened. >.>;;

_Today_

Bert takes his coffee to the table and sits looking at the wall calendar. Reiner needs to get up and go to work soon, but he has the day off. There’s those chores to do and errands to run (picking up their meds from the pharmacy, making a list of what he wants to cook in the next few days and then going to the grocery store) and his ambition surges for a moment, then falters. It does that a lot lately.

Reiner suggested the other night that maybe he needs a sunlamp, or to take vitamin D. Bert countered with “maybe I just have depression and I’m depressed” and Reiner had just looked at him evenly and said “Do tell.”

It’s frustrating sometimes, when Reiner seems to handle these things better. When he’s optimistic and tells Bert that this will pass, it sucks, but it will pass, and Bert wants to scream “I am not the one who dissociates when it’s convenient for me!” But then there are the days where Reiner is so low that it’s all Bert can do to not throw himself down with him; to do his best to pull him up instead, even when it’s hard and heavy, even when he knows that he can chase away the darkness tonight, but it’s still out there, waiting for both of them. Sometimes the light he uses burns, leaves splashes of color that interfere with his vision so he can’t see what’s there anymore, only flaming scars of what was.

He looks at Reiner’s journal again. 

Does he write about the past? Does he write down things so he doesn’t forget them? Does he write about now and tomorrow and things that haven’t happened, ideas for the novel he’s always wanted to write, or maybe even...nothing at all?

Just words.

_Five years ago_

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here today,” Ymir holds the little mixing straw from her drink between her teeth, making it waggle obscenely with her tongue.

“I mean, not really.” Bert shrugs as he sits down with his pint. “We do this basically every other week.”

“Wow, fine, okay, ruin my buzz, why don’t you,” Ymir pulls the straw out of her mouth to scowl at him. “You’re the tallest stupid stick in the fucking mud I’ve ever met.”

Bert rolls his eyes, and picks up his drink. He’s been called worse. By her. Earlier today, in fact, in a text. It’s not really important. Ymir is Ymir. Bert knows her better than most people, they have history. History that feels so impossibly far away now, unreal, and sometimes he aches for when they would stay up all night in the conservatory talking about music, when she’d walk into his and Reiner’s dorm room and leave very quickly, shouting colorful obscenities about how they should have put a fucking sock on the door. When the past was happening and not over yet, not something he has to keep turning around to see.

What she asks next still shocks him.

“So um,” she says, head dropping down as her eyes slide away. “I have a favor to ask of you. And if you don’t want to, that’s cool, but it would…” She sits up straight again and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes to steady herself. It’s alarming, and Bert’s about to ask if she’s all right when she looks back at and says: “I want you to be my best man at my wedding.”

Bert blinks. The history vanishes. For a moment it’s like they just met yesterday.

“....what?”

Ymir shrugs and looks away again, clearly uncomfortable. “Or my ‘man of honor,’ I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to call you since I don’t even fucking know who’s the bride or if we’re both brides or…”

She trails off, tapping her fingers on the table as he takes a slow sip of his beer and tries to process this.

“Don’t…shouldn’t...I mean, Marco?” he tries, fumbling for a complete sentence.

“Marco’s the one doing the wedding.” Ymir reaches up to twirl one side of her bangs around her finger, almost shy. “I asked him, so he’s getting ordained online or whatever. So like. He can’t do both.”

It’s still not processing.

“But why me? I’m sure Reiner would love to be a bridesmaid, and he’d wear a dress if you wanted.”

She waves her hand dismissively.

“He’s taken. Christa already asked him.”

“Oh,” Bert says, feeling a little foolish, a little hurt that Reiner didn’t tell him, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first or even the twenty-third time Reiner’s blanked on something fairly important like this.

They sit in tense silent for a few minutes, until Ymir throws the dregs of her drink back and starts to stand up.

“Look, it’s not a big deal, you don’t have to do it. I just thought I’d ask, it’s just a stupid wedding, no one likes weddings anyway.” 

Maybe she’s just going to get another drink, but Bert thinks he can detect a blush of embarrassment, a sneer to disguise a wobbly frown. He’s seen Ymir on this edge more often in the past few months than ever before in her life; it scares him, it makes him nervous about things he’s already unsure of most of the time, so he does something neither of them expect.

He grabs her wrist. She freezes.

They don’t touch often, they never have, except for several instances that they’ve sworn to (mostly) never speak of again. But his big hand closes around the scars from when Reiner broke her wrist in two places, and she sits back down.

“I...Ymir,” he knows he sounds unsteady, bewildered. “But really, I don’t… why me?”

She looks at him like he’s stepped in something dead - disgusted and kind of ready to laugh simultaneously. He frowns harder. “What?”

“Do you really not know?” she asks, a dark chuckle under her words. “Are you that much of an utter loser?”

What could she be talking about? What could he know that apparently makes this choice so obvious for her? Is it because they both get horny for music theory? Because he’s the only person who’ll smoke with her outside a club when they’re trashed and it’s 12 degrees? Because he used to let her borrow the car without telling Reiner and totally covered for the time she knocked one of the side mirrors off? Because he’s the only guy who’s ever-

“Oh my god,” she rolls her eyes dramatically. “I can’t believe you.”

Bert is helpless. She looks him straight in the eye, grabs his pint, drags it across the table, draining half of it before glaring straight into his soul.

“Because you’re my best friend, you dim idiot.”

Bert’s mind blue-screens out.

“Bert?"

The system has experienced a serious error.

"Bertie? Beartato?”

He’s trying desperately to restart it, but the prompt commands aren’t working.

“…...how?” he says stupidly. She must be drunk. He must be drunk. Maybe this isn’t beer, it’s wood-grain alcohol and he has one minute to live.  
“How what?”

“How………...long?” he finally decides, figuring that maybe if she can give him a time estimate he can go back and research what he might have missed, what he did that stood out to her enough that-

“Christ, since always, you absolute assfuck.”

“Does...does Reiner know?”

Ymir takes his beer again with an exasperated sigh.

“Of course he does.”

“And Marco?”

“Obviously.”

“But-”

“Bearthnagnoldt Fubar, would you just like, stop trying to think through this so hard and just tell me yes or no so I can start canvassing hobos to walk me down the fucking aisle?”

“Yes,” he says, and realizes that not only is he still holding her wrist, but she’s holding his back, her slightly smaller hand over the absence of physical scars on his skin. “Of...of course. I’d be honored.”

“Good,” she beams broadly. “Glad that’s settled. Now go buy me another drink for nearly breaking my heart there and we’ll start talking about what the shit we’re gonna wear.”

Bert stands up and laughs a little, already reaching for his wallet.

“What do you want?”

“Same thing I want every night, Pinky. To take over the world.”

“Right, I’ll just go up to the bar and be right back with your global domination.”

“And make it quick.”

There's always been Reiner, of course, and Annie, but there's never been someone else who- He didn't know that-

That it was possible for someone who didn't grow up with him, with everything, to hold him so closely in their heart? That he could be someone's choice of best friend and not their default?

Hours later, after he’s told Reiner what transpired and Reiner laughs his ass off for Bert “missing the obvious,” Bert can still feel their shared touch. A slow warmth that doesn't really fade.

He hopes (so quietly, so sincerely, so desperately) that it never goes away.

_Today_

The floor creaks in another room - Reiner’s up. Siggy scuttles into the kitchen shortly after and Bert remembers about needing to feed her. He stands up quickly, banging his knee on the table then wincing over to the pantry.

“I hope you appreciate what I do for you,” he says as he crouches down to her bowl, the now-bruising knee throbbing and the other cracking because he’s not so young anymore.

Siggy looks at him for a moment with her depthless eyes, then starts eating. He strokes her back before he hauls himself up again. Something about knowing Reiner is moments from appearing makes him agitated. It’s stupid that he feels this way sometimes, apprehensive about the man he’d already spent a lifetime with before they were old enough to understand it. He feels very...raw right now. Very exposed. Like when you dream about someone and then see them the same day and are sure they _know_.

But if he’s going to do errands, he’s going to need the car. To get the car, he’ll have to drive Reiner to work. There’s an order things go in now, when you’re 35 and you don’t know if there’s really anything to look forward to anymore except…

Making it through. Being happy.

Being happy takes such an awful lot of work. Frankly, he’s not sure he deserves it, for all the things he’s done.

He takes one last look at Reiner’s journal.

For all the things he might still do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that because of the pattern I've been using, the "now" part and the "then" part may seem disconnected? Which is kind of a reflection of Bert's own super disordered and distorted thinking, but if it's too weird or distracting, please let me know?
> 
> I'm just here...writing...drinkin' my tea...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to help. He wants to let someone else handle things. He cares too much and too little, often both at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the pacing has changed, and this chapter may be even shorter than the last one, but...hopefully it'll make sense why I switched some things up.
> 
> There's some stuff that's buried making its way to the surface.
> 
> Spoiler alert for "Downtown Abbey" season 3? :)

_Six years ago_

It’s just a TV show. It’s just a stupid show that they’re too invested in, that they make Annie watch with them. It’s harder to engage her now, but Bert remembers when they could sit on the couch for hours together like that was all that might ever happen and it would be okay if it was. She was the one who could tell them when to open their eyes again. She held the flashlight that kept them safe in the dark.

But Annie’s not here tonight. She canceled. Bert is bitter, but…fine. It’s fine. Annie has a life, it’s just a TV show. Just a stupid show that he never meant to get invested in, that he only cares about because Reiner cares, and Reiner’s passion for upper-class English dramas is hard to withstand.

It’s the last episode of the season. Storylines they've been waiting two years for have finally come to fruition, and they've decided to be cautiously optimistic about where things will go from here. While Bert’s halfway through his glass of wine there's a shot of the key male lead driving and suddenly, he knows. He chokes as the camera pans to an approaching truck that the man (he’s an actor, so he knows it’s coming, right? but he’s also just a character in a story who didn’t write his own fate) can’t see. 

It’s not every time. There’s been hundreds of action movies with car crashes that didn’t make either of them blink, but most of those weren’t so meticulously, cruelly shot to emphasize the impending tragedy. On the screen the sun is shining and everything is green, beautiful, new and in the living room it’s cozy, warm, safe and they’ve been so happy lately, so much has gotten better just in the last year, and-

Bert tries to move or react in time -turn off the TV, distract Reiner, _turn off the TV_ -but all he succeeds in doing is dropping his wine glass on the floor. He doesn’t hear either crash but he can feel the moment Reiner remembers and it’s as terrible as it is every time. 

Presumably, the credits are rolling, but all Bert can see and hear now is Reiner slowly turning to him, breath hitching in what could be a sob, but no, it happens again; he’s hyperventilating.

“Reiner,” he tries, hoping that his voice is more steady than it feels. 

Reiner’s right hand reaches down to grab Bert’s thigh tightly, left hand pressed against his own chest. He’s already sweating. 

“Reiner,” Bert tries again, covering the hand on his knee with his own, “Reiner look at me. Reiner it’s over. It was just a TV show. It didn’t happen.”

“Bert,” Reiner gasps, hand flexing as though he’s trying to feel his way through his ribs to his heart.

“It didn’t happen!” Bert knows his voice is catching the edge of sounding frantic, but he has to get them through this. He drops down to kneel in front of Reiner and his knee comes down directly on a piece of shattered wine glass. “Shit!”

He reaches down quickly to brush it away, hoping for nothing but knowing better. Although he pulls his hand up quickly, he’s not fast enough to hide it from Reiner. He’s never been good at hiding things from Reiner. 

Reiner sees the blood and his eyes widen. He’s shaking now, trembling so violently that the couch itself is vibrating. 

“Bert, what…’

“It’s fine, I’m fine! I just dropped my wine glass, it’s fine, it’s a TV show.” He should know how to do this, he's only known about Reiner's panic attacks most of their lives. But since Annie came back he's left it to her. For six years he'd had to deal with this by himself and now it was her turn. It wasn't and isn't fair to her, but has it ever been fair to him? He struggles to think of how Annie strings words together in these moments, what he used to do before he let go just this much. But he's out of practice. He does a poor imitation of being pacifying. “It’s now. It’s right now. We’re at home. Nothing important happened today.”

Reiner’s eyes find his; they’re golden panic and piercing straight through Bert’s soul, through half a life (the half they got to live afterwards).

“But it...did happen.”

It flashes in Bert’s mind suddenly, maliciously, that it’s good Reiner’s remembered because he’s never been able to forget, sometimes he gets tired, just gets so fucking tired of carrying this cross for both of them, and Annie’s not here to help _again_ , goddammit where the hell is Annie-

“Yeah. It did happen.”

Reiner starts sobbing and Bert throws his arms around him, holding him so tightly that it starts to ache through his shoulders and then he holds him harder. 

“It’s okay,” he lies to both of them, “It’s okay. It happened but not today. Not today. We’re okay.”

“Annie-”

“Annie’s fine,” Annie’s not fucking here, but she’s fine, she has to be fine and if she isn’t - he can’t go there, he can’t go there, he can teeter on the edge of the abyss he can’t move away from, but he can’t fall or look down. “Annie’s fine.” He repeats. Inside he’s calling her every horrible thing he can think of. He knows it’s a selfish diversion. 

All this time and he’s still not any fucking good at this. Everything he thinks at Annie is about himself. He’s a traitor to all of them and to their promise. He’s a monster who spends so many days trying to protect someone just so he can be the one who hurts him, lets him down, makes him remember. He needs Reiner to remember sometimes because-

Because-

“It wasn’t your fault.”

It was, though. Maybe. All of their faults. Perhaps.

“We were kids.”

They thought they could do it all on their own. Little did they know that after that day, they’d have to.

He needs Reiner to remember sometimes because then he’s allowed to shatter too and become the bitter twisted wreck of a person who’s always hiding just outside the edge of his vision. 

“It’s okay.”

It’s never been okay and it never will be, but it is this moment, the only moment, that Bertholdt Hoover is allowed to feel like this is the end of everything. 

Sometimes, he hopes it is.

_Today_

Reiner finally appears, covering a yawn with the back of his hand. He walks directly to the cabinet, pulls out a large travel mug, then goes to the coffeemaker to fill it.

“Morning, babe.”

“Hi,” says Bert, watching his husband ( _boyfriend?_ ) for any...changes? Reactions? Signs that he knows Bert’s been contemplating crossing one of the few boundaries they have for each other? “Um, listen. I have some stuff to do today, so could I have the car? I mean, like, drive you to work and then…”

Reiner blinks slowly, takes another sip of coffee. Bert looks down. Since he’s wearing a t-shirt, there are no cuffs for him to chew, nothing to put in his mouth when his teeth start to chatter anxiously for no reason, no fucking reason, so he settles for clenching his jaw and rubbing his thumb against the underside of his wrist. He wants to pretend he’s just...checking his pulse or something; it’s still a tell, and Reiner knows all his tells. 

“One of those days?”

“Maybe,” Bert shrugs, still not looking up. “I just...woke up feeling kind of…” He waves his hand a little. “You know. It’s nothing, really.”

“Do you want me to call in?” Reiner’s capability to be concerned for him, thoughtful about his needs after all this time is a blessing and it drives him absolutely insane.

“No,” he says, sitting up straighter, “It’s not a big deal. I’ll be fine.”

“If you-”

“I’m a grown-ass man, Reiner,” he tries to say it playfully like in the show they stole the line from, but there’s the echo of a growl below it. “So can I drive you to work or not?”

A pause.

“Yeah.” Reiner seems to resign himself that this is just one of those things Bert won’t let him help with. He shrugs a little, cracks his neck. “You gonna get dressed, then?”

Instead of answering, Bert walks to the closet and gets his coat out, shrugging into it before shoving his feet into the closest pair of his shoes.

“I’ll be in the car,” he says, grabbing the keys from the counter as he heads for the garage, eyes focused straight ahead.

Reiner sighs behind him. 

So what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Placebo - ["Without You I'm Nothing"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmypIo-wFY)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An origin story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been...almost 6 months. Neat, huh?
> 
> This story is...complicated. It's very difficult for me to write and sometimes I really don't want to write it and sometimes I want to finish it so badly I can't stand it. Obviously I stopped posting over the summer, when things in my head started to get not so great, and I couldn't do this without it being too hard.
> 
> But there's a lot of this story written, and after fighting tooth and nail with myself and my nailteeth, I've decided to...go ahead with posting it.
> 
> I can't promise to keep to a schedule.
> 
> I can't promise that I'll ever finish.
> 
> But I'm trying to challenge myself to do scary writing things, to allow myself to write without a beginning or an end or a deadline no one cares about with me. But I'm a sucker for having something to show for what you've been through, so... here we go.

_Seven Years Ago_

They come to the Humane Society to get a dog. That's the plan. 

Any kind of dog, they aren't looking for anything in particular, just a good boy or girl who likes to play and ideally wouldn’t chew on things it isn't supposed to chew on. 

That _was_ the plan, at least, until they pass by a cage in the cat section and Bert actually screeches to a halt while Reiner and the shelter volunteer keep walking.

The thing inside it is dark and thin, a little bit mangy and a little bit...off. It slinks towards the front of the cage as it senses someone watching, and while the movement is smooth and cautious, there’s something about it that’s not entirely feline.

“Hey!” he calls out, waving when Reiner and the volunteer turn around. “Hey what’s with this one?”

“That one?” The volunteer gets a weird look on her face. “You don’t want that one.”

“Babe, the dogs are this way,” Reiner points down the hall. “Come on.”

“No, I want to…” Bert leans closer; it comes right up to the bars and looks at him with strange eyes, the kind that glow creepily even when there’s no light to provide reflection. He knows it can see in the dark.

“Um, no really, though,” the volunteer has joined him and looks decidedly wary. “We really do have a lot of great dogs to choose from-”

“Jesus, what is that thing?!” Reiner cuts in. “It looks like something that lives in a sewer.”

Bert frowns.

“It does not.”

“It does, though.” Reiner turns to the volunteer. “No seriously, though, what is it? Is it some kind of mutant rat?”

She hedges a bit, rocking back on her heels and looking away, acting like this is really nothing to be interested in. “We...think it’s a cat.”

“You don’t know?!”

“It’s probably a cat. Just a weird...mixed breed or something. It uh...just has trouble getting along with the other cats.”

“I like it,” Bert says, putting his finger through the bars. 

The volunteer yelps. Reiner immediately grabs his wrist.

“Don’t touch it, it might have...I don’t know, everything!”

Bert’s frown grows a little deeper. “I like it.” He jerks his arm away from Reiner, looking at the volunteer. “I want to hold it.”

“Uh...I dunno if that’s a good idea…”

“Open the cage, I want to hold it,” he repeats with a little more force behind the words. He’s not sure where this edge is coming from, but he needs to see it up close. He _needs_ to.

The volunteer looks at Reiner. He shrugs helplessly.

“Let him hold it.”

“Okay, but...it hasn’t really endeared itself to anyone.” She unlocks the cage and reaches in. The creature scuttles into the back corner and hunches into a ball. Her arms aren’t quite long enough. “Come here...come on…”

Bert reaches in past her.

“Hey,” he says, and it immediately uncurls and moves toward him. Gently pushing the volunteer aside, he puts his other arm in and closes his hands around it. It’s soft. It feels nice. It lets him pull it out into the light and when he can look at it clearly, see its strangely pointy ears and its sharp little teeth as it makes a kind of half-meow/half-squeak, he knows.

“I want it.”

Reiner drops his head back with a groan.

“Babe, no.”

“Why not?” He strokes a finger across its whiskers. “I think it likes me.”

“We’re here for a dog. That’s not a dog.”

“You never said we couldn’t get a cat.”

“No, I didn’t but that’s not...a normal cat.”

“It does eat catfood?” the volunteer sounds unsure, looking back and forth between Bert and Reiner as she tries to figure out whose side she should take. “And it’s a girl. Probably. It’s probably a girl.”

“Are you a girl?” Bert asks it -her?- playfully, already slipping into the ridiculous voice people use for babies and pets. “Are you a pretty girl?”

The animal bumps her head under Bert’s chin and makes a sound a bit like a lawnmower trying to become airborne, and that’s it. There’s no doubt in his mind. Cat or cat-like, this strange thing has needed someone to recognize that although it may shy away from attention and interaction, the desire is there. It might want to sit in a corner silently, just listening to what happens. It may look weird and sound a little broken, it’s still okay. It can still love. It can still be loved. Yes, he might be projecting through the lens of his own life, but it feels right. While it’s selfish to take any choice away from Reiner, there’s been a lot of choices he didn’t get to make, a hundred moments in the past where he deferred to Reiner or Annie. He can decide for them once in a while. 

“We’ll take her.”

“Nnnngh…” Reiner clenches his hands into pleading fists. “Can’t we just like... _look_ at some dogs? You might find someone you like better.”

“Nope.” Bert shifts as she climbs his shoulder to drape around his neck. “She’s the one.” He goes in for the kill and looks at Reiner through his eyelashes, as softly, coyly, sweetly and pleadingly as possible.

Reiner throws his hands up. 

“Sure. Sure, fine, whatever.” He glares back at Bert as he folds his arms across his chest. “We’ll take it. Her. I don’t even care.”

“Uhhh...I’ll go write up the paperwork, then?” The volunteer leaves suspiciously quickly.

“I hate you,” Reiner mutters. 

“I know.” Bert grins as the creature licks his cheek, leaving a weird, tingly sensation on his skin. “Now what are we going to name her?”

All of Reiner’s suggestions involve very rude words. Eventually, Bert offers “Siggy,” and Reiner can’t come up with a valid reason to hate that, because there was that one woman on that show they both liked that time, so fine, why not.

It occurs to him later that “Siggy” could well be for “Sigyn.” He never tells Reiner, because then Reiner might know.

_Today_

When he drops Reiner off at work, there’s a pause before his boyfriend (husband?) leans over to kiss him. There’s not even time to close his eyes before it’s over.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay? I’ll check my phone every now and then.”

“I’m fine,” Bert knows his voice is quiet. “Don’t worry.”

“Did you take your meds?”

“Reiner-”

“Okay, I’m going, bye honey.”

Reiner’s door has barely slammed before Bert is pulling away from the store and heading back home. He’s irritated that Reiner is right, he did forget to take his meds, but it’s not like being a few hours late is the end of the world. Not these days. He barely feels sick when he forgets them for an entire day now, not that he makes a habit of forgetting. That’s Reiner’s job. 

God he’s being rude about that today. He tries to come up with an excuse, but there really isn’t one, or at least, not one that isn’t “I feel bad right now and I kinda want you to feel bad too.” It’s happened before. It’ll happen again. They do it back and forth and right now it’s his turn to be the asshole.

When he gets back home he tosses the keys back on the counter, drapes his coat across a kitchen chair (Annie’s chair, it’s still Annie’s chair) and toes off his shoes. The momentum lasts until he reaches the bedroom and then he gives up any pretense of doing anything but going back to sleep until some undecided time in the future. 

He flops onto his back, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing a little harder than necessary until the flecks of stars are still visible when he opens his eyes. Sluggishly, Bert slides back under the covers. Everything feels heavy, even the comforter as he pulls it over his head to shut out the same light that woke him up.

_Ten years ago_

Annie rarely calls. Most of the time they call her on the predetermined every other Sunday, and Bert wonders sometimes if she sees it as some obligation to continue to talk to them. He likes to think he’s matured enough to have (mostly) made peace with the fact that she’s never needed them as much as they’ve needed her. She’s the true leader of their trio, even if Reiner acts as the public face. And sure, they made that promise, but if anyone doesn’t need promises to make it through anything, it’s her.

This time, though, it’s not even Sunday, and she calls them.

“Tuesday afternoon,” she says, sharp and succinct. “I need you to pick me up at the bus station.”

They don’t ask. She probably wouldn’t answer. But they do wait for her, dutifully, as her bus arrives three hours late in a downpour. 

They go to meet her in the the rain while everyone’s luggage is unloaded. Bert tries to hold the umbrella over all three of them, but it doesn’t do much. When she finally has her two huge bags slung around her body, the third (the rollerboard with a broken wheel) behind her, she finally looks up at him and Bert hisses in surprise at the purple-black marks under her left eye. Although they’re all drenched, she looks particularly like she’s been drowned -pale, not all here, something lost to the currents- and he prays Reiner won’t say something thoughtless or stupid about it. 

Instead, Reiner offers her a lopsided grin (a look he perfected in high school just to annoy her) and says, “You’re super late and it was really boring because Bertholdt didn’t want to fuck in the bus station bathroom, so now you both owe me for my time.”

Annie raises her dripping bangs off her face and fixes them both with her trademark stone-cold stare.

“So you have standards now?”

“I know, right?” Reiner exhorts. “It’s not like we haven’t done it in dozens of bathrooms, but for some reason-” 

“I’ll get the car,” Bert says with a sigh. Well, he thinks as he pulls around to pick them up, at least Reiner hadn’t said anything about Annie’s face. That’s kind of a win. 

Reiner does most of the talking on the car ride, which is fine. Annie makes an occasional sound indicating that she's at least heard something. Bert just stares forward through the slashing windshield wipers, pretending like he doesn’t notice her curled up in a wet ball against the backseat. They don’t have garage access in their current apartment building; Bert tries to find a parking spot as close as he can, and they each grab one of her bags and sprint for the door, although it doesn’t make much of a difference at this point. The bottom of the elevator is covered in water by the time they get out on the fifth floor. 

It’s a one bedroom apartment, minimally furnished. Bert knows she’ll immediately recognize the couch as one her father loaned them when they graduated college. It’s a pull-out, and it’s always been incredibly uncomfortable, but Annie’s a lot smaller than they are, so maybe she’s never noticed. 

Reiner brings her a stack of towels. She disappears into the bathroom, the shower starting, and the two men exchange a look before making up the couch as best they can. Annie comes out in an oversize hoodie and leggings. Her feets and toes are badly bruised, which Bert has learned is normal for ballerinas. Her knuckles are raw too, and, although that’s often been normal for Annie herself, it doesn’t feel right this time. 

She climbs into the couch bed, burrowing under the blankets.

“I’m tired. So if you two fuck, can you please try to keep it down at least a little.”

“No promises, sweetie!” Reiner says brightly, leaning down to give her an exaggerated kiss on the forehead. She swats at him as he laughs. 

“Welcome home, Annie,” Bert manages, but it comes out sounding a little like a question. Whatever. He’s ready to crawl into his own bed where Reiner will (hopefully) physically distract him from his concerns. 

For the next few days, they pretend like everything is normal. Reiner is still polishing his dissertation, so he spends a fair amount of time in his office on campus. Bert hates his job at Kinko’s, but coming home and finding Annie there is familiar and comforting. She and Reiner play Mario Kart often, Reiner losing loudly and winning obnoxiously. Bert listens to them exchange insults as he makes dinner for the three of them. Annie’s a vegetarian now, which means he has to be more creative, but it’s almost like nothing has changed. 

And then in the midst of one game, Reiner says “Remember how we used to play the original at the Galliards’ all the time, what ever happened to them?”

Bert drops his knife. Annie inhales sharply, car careening off the side of the Rainbow Road. The world is suddenly muffled except for a sound like wind, like the moment just before the lightning-

“What?” Reiner asks when he realizes they’ve both stopped what they’re doing and looking at him. 

“...I need a minute,” Annie says after studying his face to make sure he’s serious. She gets up, heading for the bathroom, but she sees something near Bert’s hand and meets his eyes. “You’re bleeding,” she mouths.

Bert looks down. He is. Apparently sometime in those endless seconds he picked up the knife blade first. Looking at cuts across his fingers makes them hurt. He quickly goes over to the sink, dropping the knife in and running his hand under the coldest water he can get out of the faucet. What the hell, why did he do that, that was the stupidest thing, he’s never done that while cooking, he’s not a complete idiot…

“Babe, you okay?” Reiner calls. 

“Yeah, I just...knife slipped. Let’s, um...let’s get takeout, actually,” Bert mumbles as tries to salvage his pride and the past from the feelings that seep through when you’ve fucked up something you’re supposed to know how to do and you can’t recover. There’s no going back. There never was. 

In the middle of the night he wakes up to movement. Reiner usually sleeps like an especially dead log, so he raises his head to check on him. It’s Annie’s eyes who meet his as the streetlights glow through the blinds. Annie, crawling across Reiner, who is still utterly asleep. It’s silent as they assess each other, the moment about to break, when Annie steels herself and continues her movements, wedging herself down into the small space between the two men.

In a relationship with so many subtleties, with so many things designated unsaid, Bert knows better than to ask. These moments are rare, precious, so fragile that one breath might break everything. Annie turns her back to him, cuddling up against Reiner in a way she would never dare while he was awake. Bert waits for her to get comfortable before he curls around her in return, a mismatched set of spoons that somehow ended up in the same creaky drawer.

She doesn’t say anything until he’s almost on the edge of sleep again.

“How often...is it?” She swallows. “That he doesn’t...that still that happens.”

“Um...” Bert tries to focus on a solid, reassuring answer...but there isn’t one. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to figure out...how it happens. Or when.”

Annie doesn’t respond for a long time, just raises her hand to brush lightly across Reiner’s back. Bert wouldn’t be able to see it if they weren’t so close in this darkness. 

“I got kicked out of the academy for fighting.” Her words are muddy around the edges with a feeling Bert knows very well - disappointment in the world, in yourself, in what you’re left with when what you had planned on doesn’t work out, all you can do is try to ride out the storm that never really ends. “I never belonged there, anyway. Not like…”

Here, she doesn’t say. With you two, Bert wants to hear. Smashed together in this life for better or worse, a contract signed in blood and tears, clauses bound up impossibly in the ties that bind and burn and hold. 

He shouldn’t be secretly thrilled that her own hubris has brought her back to them, but he can’t help it. Bert hates to carry failure alone - Annie’s here now and he doesn’t have to. And he’s always been very selfish when it comes to her. When it comes to them. He presses his face into her hair and remembers when he thought this was the shade of blonde he liked better, wishes sometimes they could all forget.

She may be the alpha, after all, but she’s only human. At best, at worst, that’s all they’ve ever been or known how to be.

His arm is near her face. There’s a damp spot forming on the corner of his shirt sleeve.

“Sorry,” Annie says hoarsely, “I’m not...It’s too hot here, I’m sweating.”

Annie would break her own heart before she admitted to crying. She would go absolutely mad. And certainly, she’s not well, but they can still pretend, right now, in the dark.

“It’s okay,” Bert whispers. “I know you don't cry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Wikipedia: "Sigyn is mentioned a second (and final) time in the ending prose section of the poem Lokasenna. In the prose, Loki has been bound by the gods with the guts of his son Nari, his son Váli is described as having been turned into a wolf, and the goddess Skaði fastens a venomous snake over Loki's face, from which venom drips. Sigyn, again described as Loki's wife, holds a basin under the dripping venom. The basin grows full, and she pulls it away, during which time venom drops on Loki, causing him to writhe so violently that earthquakes occur that shake the entire earth."
> 
> Reiner is the writer, but Bert gets a little melodramatic with his metaphors sometimes (read: often).

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, always. <3


End file.
